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COURSE CARE

On The Road With The USGA - August 2008
February 27, 2015

On The Road With The USGA - August 2008

By Bob Vavrek, Senior Agronomist
August 19, 2008

At mid-August, many superintendents begin to anticipate the
end of the season. Time to order a new set of tines for the
aerator that will be used in a few weeks and time to reflect
upon how much our original plans for fertilizing and managing
greens needed to be radically changed throughout the
season.

I have not visited many courses recently where the
superintendents were happy with the appearance and growth rate
of turf on greens. Many of the "perfect" fertilizer
programs painstakingly planned and developed last winter had to
be completely re-tooled in response to unforeseen
circumstances. Winter injury, a deluge of rain during early
June, slow recovery of aeration holes during a very cold
spring, unanticipated growth regulator effects and other issues
forced turf managers to alter the way they fertilized the turf.
In many instances, nutrient management was reactive instead of
proactive.

You couldn't win. Sometimes the reaction to slow aeration
recovery and winter injury was to make repeated applications of
mostly slow release nitrogen. However, the fertilizer just sat
there until mid July when hot, humid weather finally arrived.
When temperatures soared so did the rate of turf growth. Soft,
fat grass plants were difficult to whip into shape without
scalping the turf. Too much grass on the greens was the common
complaint from players.

Other courses met the challenge of no or slow spring growth
by fertilizing lightly and frequently with quick release
nitrogen, thinking they were clever enough to avoid the dreaded
hot weather surge in growth. Then the 10+ inches of rain that
plagued the upper Midwest during early June washed all that
soluble fertilizer completely out of the root zone. The 4
th
of July arrives and greens look and perform as if they haven't
seen any nitrogen in years. Spindly, chlorotic
Poa annua
and bentgrass are begging for fertilizer, while our intuition
and experience tells us that August 1
st
isn't exactly the right time to drop a pound bomb of nitrogen
on the greens just a week before the club championship. So you
spray a little fertilizer and the rate that usually lasts a
week to 10 days only perks up the turf for 48 hrs. Frustration
sets in and you wonder if your weak, yellow greens can survive
all the beating it will take to produce extra speed and
firmness for next week's major club event. The only people
enjoying this scenario are those emptying clipping from baskets
only once every couple of holes.

It has been a kooky summer and just when you think things
cannot get any stranger, the assistant pro calls to tell you
the 9-hole ladies league was in the shop complaining that the
greens have become really slow lately. After all, aren't they
really about the last group of players who actually seem to
have fun out golfing together each week without getting all
caught up with the quest for perfection on the course.

Seasons like this help to remind us that Mother Nature still
rules when it comes to our turf management decision making
process. To paraphrase Robert Burnsâ€¦"the best laid plans
of mice and men often go awry."